NICOLE: --- but that point is too sharp.

HATTIE: and several days a week, there are fitting meetings where Nicole and the team see the piece on a real person for the first time.

NICOLE: -- it goes up too high on the sides? Right?

HATTIE: Costing is calculated by the production department based upon labor, fabric and trim. The sales department decides the best price to be competitive and the garment is scheduled for production. Up to this point, everything has been done by hand – sketching, draping, pattern-making. At the factory, patterns are sized and created by computer.

NICOLE: Well, the first thing I do is plan a color story for the season -- and I just do that totally instinctively. And then I look for the fabrics and I try to find new fabrics and then I try to continue some fabrics that have been successful for me in the past. And, then I start to just map out kind of a game plan, sort of like an outline of the direction that the season is going to go in.

Then I'm always sort of trying to find a concept – what the concept is – what “the girl” is going to be for this season. And you know sometimes the inspiration comes like that – I will just see something walking down the street and I'll go “that's it.”

And some years I can't find an inspiration, so I have to turn everything upside down.